Читать книгу The Tin Soldier - Temple Bailey - Страница 20

Even then he did not grasp what had happened to him. "Ralph will let me have one of his—be a good sport, Ralph."

"Well, I like that," Ralph began. Then Jean's crisp voice stopped him. "I am not going to dance any more—my head aches. I—I shall ask Daddy to take me—home—"

It was all very young and obvious. Derry gave her a puzzled stare. Ralph protested. "Oh, look here, Jean. If you think you aren't going to dance any more with me."

"Well, I'm not. I am going home. Please take me down to Daddy."

It seemed a long time before the blurred good-byes were said, and Jean was alone with her father in the cozy comfort of the closed car.

"Do you love me, Daddy?"

"My darling, yes."

"May I live with you always—to the end of my days?"

He chuckled. "So that was it? Poor Ralph!"

"You know you are not sorry for him, Daddy. Don't be a hypocrite."

He drew her close to him. "I should be sorry for myself if he took you from me."

She clung to him. "He is not going to take me away."

"Was that what you were telling him on the balcony stairs?"

"Yes. And he said I was too young to know my own mind. That I was a sleeping Princess—and some day he would wake me—up—"

"Oh."

"And he is not the Prince, Daddy. There isn't any Prince."

She had shut resolutely away from her the vision of Derry Drake as she had seen him on the night of Cinderella. She would have no white-feathered knight! Princes were brave and rode to battle!